June 22, 2010: China recently launched the fourth of 35 Beidou ("Compass") navigation satellites. Within two years, it will have enough Beidou birds in orbit to provide GPS type service for all of China. By the end of the decade, all 35 satellites will be up, and the entire planet will have access to Beidou.

It was two years ago that China decided to expand its Beidou satellite navigation system to cover the entire planet, like GPS, Galileo and Glonass. Think of the original Beidou system as GPS light. That version of Beidou (or Beidou 1) only covered East Asia, and not even all of China. But it covered the areas along the coast, and Taiwan. The Beidou 1 system was less accurate than GPS, slower, but it did allow two way traffic. This was useful for sending short messages (up to 120 Chinese characters so, about a hundred words). Sort of IM (Instant Messaging) class stuff. The system could only handle a few hundred thousand users, but that would have been sufficient for the number of Chinese troops involved in any major operation. Beidou 1 also suffered some reliability problems, and was apparently very vulnerable to jamming and spoofing. Because of all that, it was believed that Beidou 1 was just a first generation system. A training system, one where China learns the ins and outs of building satellite navigation systems. China has confirmed that with the admission that it is taking its experience and building a world-wide "Beidou 2" system over the next decade.

The success of the U.S. GPS satellite navigation system has generated all this competition. But so far, these other efforts have had rough going. A European consortium is going forward with its own version of GPS, called Galileo, despite growing costs and technical problems. Initially, Galileo was to be funded with private money. But the costs climbed beyond the most optimistic estimates of future income, so now Galileo will be paid for by tax dollars, as was GPS, and the competing Russian and Chinese systems.

Galileo came about because the Europeans didn't like being dependent on an American system, and don't believe the Russians will be able to keep their GLONASS system viable. If Galileo becomes operational, the European nations will pay for it, but anyone can use it. Dual signal (GPS and Galileo) receivers won't cost much more (maybe 20 percent more) than GPS receivers do. Having two separate sets of signals makes for more reliable and accurate receivers. Also, the way Galileo is being set up, it will provide improved reliability in higher latitudes and in built up areas.

Russia's answer to GPS, GLONASS, was at full strength (24 satellites) shortly after the Cold War ended (1995). But the end of the Cold War meant the end of the regular financing for GLONASS. Maintaining the system meant launching replacement satellites every 5-7 years. By the end of 2002, only seven GLONASS birds were still operational. However, the Russian economy recovered, and provided funds for a series of launches in 2003, that increased the number of active satellites to twelve, and that went to 18 by the end of 2007. Russia has 21 GLONASS satellites in orbit now, and plans to have the system fully operational by next year, and be a real competitor for GPS.

The money for GLONASS is coming from a Russian government that does not want to be dependent on the American Department of Defense controlled GPS system. But the money is only there because of high oil prices. Most GLONASS receivers in use are actually combined GPS/GLONASS receivers. Russia will have to put billions of dollars into GLONASS over the next few years to get the system fully operational, and then spend even more money to maintain the satellite network.

The Chinese Compass network plans to incorporate the best features of the GLONASS and Galileo systems, as well as items planned for the next generation GPS satellites. With all that, no one has found a way to make a buck off a network of navigation satellites. At least not directly. There are plenty of ideas, but no one has yet turned any of those ideas into cash. Moreover, there are problems between Beidou, Galileo and Glonass, over who should use what frequencies first. Since GPS got into service first, no one is contesting the frequencies GPS uses. But the three other players have some problems.